


light up the room

by myscribblingquill



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 13:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13191411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myscribblingquill/pseuds/myscribblingquill
Summary: It's Christmas and that means there's a tree that needs decorating and decorations that need to be put up. If only Mary didn't have flatmates with other plans.prompt:ummm just so you know, I’m kind of stuck in the christmas lights





	light up the room

**Author's Note:**

> for [ grace ](https://prongsno.tumblr.com) who sent me the prompt <3
> 
> This is technically a christmas fic but it’s still the christmas season right?

The whole world has turned into bright colours, holidays songs and the smell of freshly baked cookies -well maybe freshly burnt cookies.

It starts in October. She really can’t help it but as soon as the leaves start falling Mary’s thoughts turn to Christmas. She buys most of her presents and hides them in her cupboard, keeps her Christmas recipe book out of the kitchen and ignores the tinsel in the shops.

She keeps a lid on it until December first and then she gets out the Christmas decorations.

Lily and Marlene have lived with her long enough to go along with it. Lily objects for half an hour before giving in and putting on her Christmas socks. Marlene is a bit more stubborn. She insists they wait until twelve days before Christmas before even thinking about any of it.

They come to a compromise. Around December 7th they buy a tree.

It’s always been Mary’s favourite part. The build-up to Christmas has always held more fun for her. There are decorations to make and put up, presents to wrap, people to see. The shops are bright and colourful, and there are smiles on faces everywhere.

The tree is the bit she treasures though. It’s a tradition in her house that they all decorate the tree together, but when living with her friends it’s difficult to coordinate the three of them -not including the rest of their friends that will turn up anyway. So Mary chooses an evening and gets out the tinsel.

She spends most of her day organising the decorations. After the fiasco on New Years the previous year they’d hurried the decorations back into the box, and shoved them out of the way. There are tangled strings of lights and a few broken ornament which almost breaks Mary’s heart, but most of them are salvageable. But by the time she gets round to decorating the tree Lily and Marlene are home.

Lily turns up the music, and the three of them sing along to Mariah Carey. Marlene makes hot chocolate with peppermint and lots of cream. It finally feels a little more like Christmas. Mary can’t keep the grin off her face. She can’t shake of the feeling that something is missing though, maybe it’s her family, or her mum’s cooking. Mary can’t pinpoint it so she squashes the feeling down and focuses on the tree.

They get the lights on the tree, and Mary’s left with two extra boxes. Last year they’d been smashed twice so she wasn’t taking an chances. Alice arrives with a box of hand painted baubles with each of their names on them and they spend awhile oh-ing and ah-ing.

The tree gets added to slowly, but with the four of them talking they eventually end up on the sofa, with a half decorated tree.

“I spent three hours making the gingerbread mix,” Lily exclaims, telling Alice about her cooking endeavours, “They go into the oven, and I’d even set a timer,”

Mary giggles at the thought of what happened next.

“Then Marlene turns the oven off,” Lily sighs.

“You didn’t notice for three hours,” Marlene says with a laugh.

Alice bursts into laughter, her hair flopping over her eyes as she shakes her head.

“I would have done if you hadn’t turn it off,”

Lily tugs the blanket away from Marlene who squeals and pull it back. A tug of war ensues, with Mary and Alice trapped in the middle, as the blanket moves back and forth until the four of them end up on the floor.

The tree towers above them. Mary can see up through the branches, the lights twinkling off the few baubles they’ve put up. From down there it seem as if the tree goes on forever, reaching into the heavens of the white ceiling.

“How are we going to get the star on the top?” Alice says.

They’re all too short to do it. Even Marlene, the tallest of them has to go on her tiptoes to reach and her fingers are too shaky to secure the star.

“Did you text one of the human giants?” Lily asks Mary

“I text them but they haven’t turned up yet,”

“We should have bribed them with food,” Marlene says.

“No need for that,” Mary winks at Lily with a grin. It takes her a moment but then Lily sputters and moves to hid her red face.

“I’m not the only reason he’d come over here,” Lily yells from the other side of the tree. She’s shrouded by green and Mary laughs at the indignant tone in her voice.

Lily’s head pokes out from around the branches and Mary’s still in fits of giggles. Marlene has taken it up herself to sort the tinsel so it’s not all in a mess on one branch.

“You blend in with the tree Mary,” Marlene says, she’s got tinsel wrapped around her neck and it’s glinting of her face.

Mary looks down at her top. It’s almost the same colour as the tree, a dark green jumper that her mum knitted a few years ago. It’s comfy and always reminds her of christmas. She tugs her sleeves down and compares the colours.

When she looks up she see Lily, still poking her head round the tree, but now with an evil glint in her eye. Mary’s known her for long enough to know that glint normally ends up with them in some sort of trouble. Right now all Mary wants to do it put up decorations and eat mince pies. Lily’s face says that she’ll be doing otherwise.

“You know, if Mary’s a christmas tree then she need decorations,”

Mary takes a step backwards. There are lights trailing on the floor behind Lily. They clink as she drags them over the floor and the twinkling of the lights on the tree becoming ominous.

Five minutes later Mary wiggles her arms in vain.

There are lights wrapped around her, trapping her arms to her side, twirling around her face, blurring her vision a little. She can shuffle her feet though. Her feet can’t move to far apart as there are lights around her ankles, she has to settle for hopping - which considering the ggnog she’d already had isn’t a good idea.

Lily and Marlene are in fits of giggles laughing at her, and snapping pictures with their phones. Mary glares, and Lily gives her an evil grin. The pictures are not flattering, her nose is turned up and there are lights in her hair. The pictures is sent anyway, Mary has no power to stop it, her hands restrained by christmas lights.

She flopsto on the sofa and watches her friends.

They kept decorating the tree, but they’re not getting very far. They spend more time talking and drinking eggnog than putting up the decorations. Mary’s glad she doesn’t have to be up early the next day, she can spend the night fixing the mess that is the random assortment of baubles and tinsel in their lounge.

The lights are starting to annoy her. They’re plugged into the mains so she can’t go very far.

She’s pulled the plug out a few times but Lily always plugs it back in.

Mary’s decided that Lily must have done some sort of fancy knot in the lights. She can wiggle her arms but she can’t get the damn lights off.

Lily is watching the door. She’s trying to be subtle, but her eyes keep flitting back towards the door, and she scowls a little when there’s no sound of knocking. It’s would make Mary suspicious but it’s likely that James has said that he’s on his way. The glances Marlene keeps shooting send a wave of worry through Mary. The little smirk on Marlene’s face is smug and Mary knows that whatever they’ve got planned it can’t be good.

A few minutes later the door handle rattles and Mary can hear someone swearing outside.

“I’ve brought the star,” Sirius burst in through their door, wreathed in smiles, carrying a plastic bag from the corner shop The looks from Lily and Marlene make sense now.

Mary doesn’t even try to contain the blush on her checks as Sirius’ eyes land on her. The TV is playing an advert and Mary finds that she suddenly very interested in the perfume that’s being advertised by a barely clothed model.

“Evening, Macdonald,” Sirius grins, Mary can feel the blush creeping over her cheeks. Her face is hot and if she was paying attention she would feel her heart fluttering.

“You better not be thinking of climbing the tree,” Lily says with a glare.

Mary can’t help but let out a giggle at the thought of Sirius on the tree. Sirius catches her eye, he places the bag the plastic bag he’s carrying in the kitchen and sits down next to her.

“You’re looking very shiny this evening, Mary?”

He’s still smirking and Mary can’t tell why. Whether it’s because her hair is a mess, she’s wrapped up in Christmas lights or because she trying to contain a grin, Mary can’t tell. But she wants him to stop it. With him smiling at her it finally feels like Christmas, she can feel the seasonal spirit, the little tingle in her stomach, the excitement and anticipation, and it’s all because of Sirius’ damn smile.

“I think she needs some tinsel,” Alice drapes something red and glittery across her face and now Mary can’t even she Sirius’ smile. The image is etched into her brain and she doesn’t think she’ll ever get rid of it (and honestly she doesn’t want to).

With the tinsel over her head Mary has to listen to what’s going on around her.

She can hear Sirius breathing, and feel his leg pressed up to her. Lily’s laughing at something and Alice is giving out instructions on tree decorating. From what Mary can tell the tree isn’t going to be the prettiest.

Remus’ laugh echos from somewhere, and Mary can hear the shuffling of Peter’s feet. She hadn’t heard them come in but they’re giving out drinks from what Mary can tell, and she’s suddenly craving some eggnog.

“Just so you know, I’m still stuck in the Christmas lights,” Mary exclaims and nudges Sirius with her leg.

Laughter echoes around the room, and then Mary feels hands at her back and the lights loosen. She shakes the tinsel of her head and the room erupts into a glare of Christmas colour.

The tree isn’t horrendous. Lily has always been a secret Christmas fanatic and Mary’s seen her tree decorating skills before so she had some faith in her friends. The colours are a bit of a mishmash, with red and green and blue tinsel, the lights are curled around the tree trunk in some places and the ornaments are clumped together. But every face has a smile on it, Peter sat sleepily on the other sofa, Remus trying to guess what's in the presents and Lily stealing James’ eggnog.

If she was at home she would waste no time telling her brothers off for ruining the tree and setting it to rights again, but now, with all her friends around her, the hodgepodge tree is the prettiest thing she’s seen.

There’s only one problem it’s missing the star on the top. Mary can see it hanging out the decorations box, but when she goes to get up she remembers the lights. She can move her arms now but she forgot about her feet. Her legs strain again the wire and she tumbles back down onto the sofa - straight into Sirius’ arms.

“I was hoping you’d end up here at some point,” Mary doesn’t have to see his smirk to know it’s there.

“I was trying to put the star on the tree,” Mary wriggles her legs and the lights shift down over her knees. She pulls them off and puts them in a pile on the floor.

Her heart leaps into her chest as Sirius’ hands land on her hips. Mary focuses on the tree, the glittering star, not on the way the heat from his hands is travelling up her stomach, on how his touch is making her spine tingle and how she would be quite happy to stay in his lap forever.

“I thought I was the star,” Sirius says, his mouth so close to her ear it ruffles her hair. An involuntary shiver runs down her and Mary can see the hairs on her arm stand up.

She considers for a moment. The others are all occupying themselves, someone’s found a pack of cards and they’re confirm rules of some game. No one is paying attention and Mary decides that even though having a star on the tree is important, it can wait. There are other, more pressing matters, she’s got to attend to.

Mary leans back into Sirius. She shifts a little so she can see him. His brow is slightly furrowed and he’s watching her with a slightly pensive expression.

“Merry Christmas, Sirius,” Mary smiles. She can see the twinkling of the lights reflected in Sirius eyes as he says it back..

There a moments pause, not of hesitation, but of contentment as the warmth of her friends laughter seeps into Mary’s bones. She raises her head and presses his lips against Sirius. They’re warm and taste of eggnog and peppermint.

He pulls back and press his forehead to hers, “I don’t think I need to open any of my presents this year,”

Mary chuckles, “You’d better. I’m proud of my gift buying abilities,”

He kisses her again and Mary melts against him, only pulling away when the noise in the room stops.

They break apart to see their friends staring at then. Lily with a huge grin on her face, James looking slightly offended as he says: “I didn’t even get the mistletoe out yet,”

“Why did everyone have to be here,” Mary groans, sinking her face into Sirius’ shoulder to hide her flaming cheeks.

“It’s tree decorating. You need all the help you can get,” Sirius says into her hair.

“You never invited me over for tree decorating,” Mary accuses with a grin.

He drops a kiss on her head, “That’s because we’ve had our tree up for a month,”

Mary’s mouth falls open. She can’t believe that she hasn’t been over to his apartment for a month but then it’s been a busy month. But he still didn’t invite her for the tree decorating and she’s sure there’s a star on their tree.

“I wasn’t going to decorated it but Lily came over and well,” Sirius gives a sheepish shrug and Mary’s not sure who to be more mad at. Sirius for going Christmas tree shopping without her or Lily for not mentioning that there was Christmas tree she could be putting presents under for the last month.

She forgets all about it as Sirius captures her lips again, she even forgets about the missing star, left in the box in the corner of the room.

It’s still not on the tree at New Years. They had a party and invite everyone they can think of - the people they like at least. There’s mistletoe then and Sirius makes a point of dragging Mary under every sprig he can find. She doesn’t object though. After all it’s Christmas, no better time to be with the people you love.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Find me on tumblr: [willsdarcy](https://willsdarcy.tumblr.com)


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